Fieldstone, limestone and slate: Work progresses on Whitman

Posted April 27, 2006; 10:15 a.m.

by Ruth Stevens

On any given weekday, some 200 workers from just about every trade
group converge on the site of Whitman College. The University’s sixth
residential college is quickly
taking shape between Baker Rink and Dillon Gymnasium, involving crews of
everyone from carpenters to masons to plumbers.

Stonemasons have been working on the walls since
last summer with materials from quarries in Pennsylvania and New York.
“We are very happy with the progress of the stone and the aesthetics of
the stone,” said John Ziegler, special assistant to the vice president
for facilities and project director. “That was one of the biggest
challenges on the project, and it appears that we’re going to have a
building that is absolutely meeting all the criteria for Collegiate
Gothic.”

The 255,000-square-foot facility, designed by Princeton
graduate alumnus Demetri Porphyrios and the firm of Einhorn, Yaffee,
Prescott, is scheduled for occupancy in fall 2007. Work on the nine
structures that make up the college is progressing roughly from north to
south, with the slate roof and mahogany casement windows already being
installed on the building closest to Dillon Gymnasium. In another couple
of months, according to Ziegler, mockup rooms — dormitory rooms fitted
with furniture — will be completed in that building, enabling the
project team to get a better idea of what’s in store.

In addition to fieldstone, the exterior walls feature
limestone as an accent surrounding the windows. The limestone is cut and
carved in Indiana and then shipped to campus. “If you walk around the
construction site, you’ll see palette upon palette [below left] of
limestone,” Ziegler said. “The ends of the limestone have numbers
written on them — it’s like a big three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. Each
of those pieces has a specific place to go in the building.”

The dining hall on the east side of the complex and a “gatehouse”
on the west side will be finished entirely in limestone. “You can see the
limestone going up on the gatehouse right now, and it provides significant
distinction in appearance from the fieldstone buildings right next to it,”
Ziegler said. The gatehouse will contain classrooms, graduate student rooms and
singles, and will be connected by a footbridge to Pyne Drive and New South.